[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 46 (Tuesday, April 9, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2492-S2494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, 4 months after the horrific day in 
Newtown where 20 children and 6 educators were senselessly murdered, 
the Senate is posed to make further progress toward the goal of 
reducing gun violence. It is a goal that all Americans, regardless of 
political party or philosophy, should share. I don't know how any 
parent, any grandparent, or any relative ever gets over the horrific 
disaster of Newtown.
  I thank our ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Senator 
Grassley. He worked with us, and he favorably supported two of the 
measures reported by the Judiciary Committee last month. Senator 
Grassley helped make sure we had hearings that were substantive and 
that we had a schedule so we could vote.
  I commend Senator Collins, who has been my partner as we have moved 
forward with legislation to combat illegal gun trafficking and straw 
purchasers who obtain firearms legally but then provide them to 
criminals and gangs. We have been joined in that bipartisan effort by 
Senators Durbin, Gillibrand, Kirk, Klobuchar, Franken, Blumenthal, 
Shaheen, and King.
  Our bill is intended to give law enforcement better and more 
effective tools. A bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee voted 
for the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act, S. 54. It has 
provisions that are included in the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act, 
S. 649, which Majority Leader Reid placed on the Senate calendar just 
before the last recess and on which he has now moved to proceed.
  Straw purchasers get around the purpose of the background check 
system. Straw purchasing of firearms is undertaken for just one reason: 
to get a gun into the hands of someone who is legally prohibited from 
having one.
  We know that many guns used in criminal activities are acquired 
through straw purchases. It was a straw purchaser who enabled the 
brutal murders of two brave firefighters in Webster, NY, this past 
Christmas Eve, and it was a straw purchaser who provided firearms to an 
individual who murdered a police officer in Plymouth Township, PA, last 
September. Is it any wonder that law enforcement across this country 
says: Stop the straw purchasing. We are losing too many brave men and 
women in law enforcement, to say nothing about all the others who have 
been killed by drug and criminal cartels.
  We need a meaningful solution to this serious problem. We have 
included suggestions from Senator Gillibrand to go after those who 
traffic in firearms by wrongfully obtaining two or more firearms. We 
worked hard to develop effective, targeted legislation to help combat a 
serious problem. We are doing it in a way that protects the second 
amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
  It was an ATF whistleblower who testified in the last Congress that 
the existing firearm laws are ``toothless.'' We can create better law 
enforcement tools, and that is what we are doing with the Stop Illegal 
Trafficking in Firearms Act. I urge all Senators to join with us and 
close this dangerous loophole in the law that Mexican drug cartels, 
gangs, and other criminals throughout our country have exploited for 
too long.
  I wish to recognize the dedication and leadership of Senator Collins 
of Maine to confront the issue of gun violence. She is not a member of 
the Judiciary Committee, but she has been

[[Page S2493]]

committed to finding commonsense solutions to the problems of gun 
violence. She has been dedicated in working with me to address the 
concerns of other Senators. She and I share a deep respect for the 
second amendment. We also agree our laws can be improved to give law 
enforcement officials the tools they need, and she has been a steadfast 
partner.
  Our bill protects second amendment rights of lawful gun owners, but 
at the same time it cracks down on criminals. It also cracks down on 
the people who assist criminals. It doesn't create a national firearms 
registry, it doesn't place additional burdens on law-abiding gun owners 
or purchasers, but it does send a very clear message that those who buy 
a gun on behalf of a criminal or member of a drug cartel or domestic 
abuser will be held accountable. That is why law enforcement says: Pass 
this bill. Give those of us in law enforcement who are on the 
frontlines the tools we need.
  Some have expressed frustration about the level of prosecution under 
existing gun laws. Some have suggested that instead of making sensible 
changes to our public safety laws to prevent gun violence, Federal law 
enforcement officials should focus exclusively on existing laws. I 
share some of that frustration, but it is not a valid excuse to do 
nothing. Improvements in the enforcement of existing laws and efforts 
to give law enforcement officials better tools to do their jobs are not 
mutually exclusive. Those are efforts that complement each other.
  A recent article in the Washington Times documented that gun 
prosecutions were in decline beginning in the Bush administration and 
suggests that having a Senate-confirmed Director of the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would significantly help law 
enforcement.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the article be 
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

               [From the Washington Times, Apr. 4, 2013]

            Drop-off in Gun Prosecutions Began Before Obama

                         (By David Sherfinski)

       Gun rights groups have singled out President Obama for 
     failing to prosecute gun crimes, but the drop in cases filed 
     actually began a decade ago under the Bush administration.
       Analysts said the decade long drop underscores the key 
     ingredient in gun prosecutions--a willingness to make them a 
     priority.
       Prosecutions dipped at the beginning of the Clinton 
     administration but by 1998 had begun to rise again, tripling 
     between then and 2004, when the federal government filed more 
     than 11,000 cases. Since then, however, prosecutions have 
     steadily fallen again, dipping below 8,000 prosecutions a 
     year over the last three years.
       Now, in the wake of last year's shooting spree that claimed 
     the lives of 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook 
     Elementary, all sides in the gun debate say they want to see 
     the laws on the books enforced. But the experience of the 
     last 10 years suggests that's easier said than done.
       ``Presidents and administrations--their priorities are 
     based partly in their ideology and their policy interests, 
     and to a certain extent by the issues of the day,'' said John 
     Hudak, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies gun 
     policy.
       Looking at trends over the last quarter century, two 
     emerge: First, there were two annual peaks in gun 
     prosecutions, both of them under Republican presidents, in 
     1992 and 2004. Second, even though prosecutions have dropped 
     in recent years, the yearly number of gun cases is still much 
     higher now than in the pre-9/11 era, according to the 
     Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse 
     University, which tracks the numbers.
       What's tougher to explain is exactly why prosecutions had a 
     several-year spike at the end of the Clinton administration 
     and the beginning of President George W. Bush's tenure.
       Mr. Hudak said the 1999 Columbine school shooting may have 
     spurred an increase in prosecutions, and so could the spate 
     of terrorist attacks in 1998, 2000 and, finally, the Sept. 11 
     attacks on New York and Washington.
       And David Chipman, a former agent with the Bureau of 
     Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), said some of 
     the increase may have been due to a Justice Department 
     program that started in 2001 and targeted gun crimes in 
     localities across the country.
       ``That kind of commitment put a lot of numbers on the 
     board,'' said Mr. Chipman, who works with the gun-control 
     group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. ``I think it worked as 
     designed, which is to create a deterrent.''
       The ATF, perhaps unfairly, began to receive criticism after 
     the increase that some of their efforts were duplicative, and 
     officials had to re-prioritize, Mr. Chipman said.
       ``You can't just prosecute 20,000 cases in one year--there 
     just isn't that infrastructure,'' he said.
       ``Any kind of looking at the numbers and drawing some sort 
     of conclusion that people are doing more or less--you've got 
     to get beyond that. Because you could be comparing apples and 
     oranges.''
       Gun prosecutions require both cases to be developed by 
     investigators, and charges to be filed by prosecutors.
       The TRAC study's numbers said prosecutors turned down 38 
     percent of referrals in 2002, while last year they declined 
     32 percent of referrals.
       That puts much of the focus on ATF, the lead agency for 
     developing the cases.
       Mr. Hudak said one factor in recent decline could be the 
     fact that ATF has been without a permanent director for six 
     years. In January, Mr. Obama nominated acting agency director 
     B. Todd Jones to become its permanent head, but Mr. Jones is 
     still awaiting Senate confirmation.
       ``The lack of leadership has its effects on priorities,'' 
     Mr. Hudak said. ``And the ATF has such a diverse area of law 
     enforcement that they have to make choices about what they 
     prosecute.''
       In the wake of last year's shooting rampage at Sandy Hook 
     Elementary School, gun-rights groups have argued the solution 
     is more prosecutions of gun crimes, not more restrictions on 
     law-abiding firearms owners.
       ``Prosecuting criminals who misuse firearms works,'' NRA 
     CEO Wayne LaPierre testified to Congress earlier this year. 
     ``Unfortunately, we've seen a dramatic collapse in federal 
     gun prosecutions in recent years. That means violent felons, 
     gang members and the mentally ill who possess firearms are 
     not being prosecuted. And that's unacceptable.''
       Attorney General Eric. H. Holder, Jr. told the Senate 
     Judiciary Committee earlier this year that prosecuting gun 
     crimes is part of the answer and can serve as a deterrent, 
     but that preventing people who acquire guns to commit crimes 
     from getting them in the first place is crucial as well.
       ``We have limited resources and we have to try to figure 
     out where we want to use those limited resources, and one has 
     to look at why the gun was denied, and then make a 
     determination whether or not we should use those limited 
     resources to bring a prosecution against that person,'' Mr. 
     Holder said, referring to people who have been denied 
     firearms because of the FBI's National Instant Criminal Check 
     System (NICS).
       Mr. Chipman acknowledged that with different 
     administrations, ideologies, result in different priorities, 
     which could affect the numbers, but he cautioned that drawing 
     conclusions about causes and effects can be risky.
       ``You can't possibly know what those numbers mean until you 
     layer the political environments at the time and the cases 
     being pursued,'' he said.
       Both Mr. Hudak and Mr. Chipman discounted one potential 
     reason for the spike in prosecutions--the 1994 enactment of a 
     ban on military-style semiautomatic rifles. That ban ran from 
     1994 until its expiration in 2004, and those latter years 
     coincide with the recent peak, which started in 1998.
       But the analysts said that was likely unrelated.
       ``The assault weapons ban was a shell of what the original 
     writers intended it to be,'' Mr. Hudak said. ``I can't 
     imagine there would be a four-year lag in the effect of the 
     assault weapons ban on prosecutions.''

  Mr. LEAHY. As I said in January, America is looking to us for 
solutions, for action, not sloganeering, demagoguery, or partisanship. 
That is why it is disappointing to hear that some Senators pledge to 
prevent Senate consideration of these proposals by a filibuster. It is 
especially disappointing that some who claim to support regular order 
and a transparent legislative process accord that process no deference.
  Mr. President, there are only 100 of us who have the privilege to 
serve at any given time in this wonderful body. We represent 325 
million Americans. How can we talk to those Americans and say: We won't 
even vote. We won't even let it come to a vote. We don't have the guts 
to stand up and vote yes or no.
  Tell that to the families in Newtown, CT. Tell that to the families 
in Aurora, CO. Tell that to the people of the United States, that the 
Senate is not willing to stand up and vote either yes or no; they want 
to vote maybe.
  I am a gun owner. I live in a State with a lot of gun owners. I have 
the courage to stand here and vote. I want to vote. Some will agree 
with my votes, some will disagree, but this Senator feels it is part of 
his sworn duty to vote--vote yes, vote no, but vote.
  In the Judiciary Committee, we held three public hearings and four 
public markups on this legislation. We gave them full and fair 
consideration. We debated and considered amendments--

[[Page S2494]]

Democratic and Republican amendments. The distinguished Presiding 
Officer is a member of that committee. He knows the debate we had and 
the votes we held. What a filibuster would do now is obstruct the open 
process of the Senate consideration of gun violence prevention 
legislation, and it is wrong. It is absolutely wrong. It demeans the 
Senate, and it turns our backs on 325 million Americans who expect 
better.
  I have worked with Senator Collins and others to provide a real-world 
and commonsense solution to the problem of gun trafficking and straw 
purchasing. That is the course I urge the Senate to take. Let's go 
forward and vote. Vote yes, vote no, but vote. Have the courage to 
vote. Don't turn our backs on the families who have suffered so much.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my full statement be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, four months after that horrific day in 
Newtown, where 20 children and 6 educators were senselessly murdered, 
the Senate is poised to make further progress toward the goal of 
reducing gun violence. It is a goal that all Americans, regardless of 
political party, should share.
  I want to thank our ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, 
Senator Grassley, for working with us and supporting two of the 
measures favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee last month. I 
commend Senator Collins, who has been my partner, as we have moved 
forward with legislation to combat illegal gun trafficking and straw 
purchasers who obtain firearms to provide them to criminals and gangs. 
We have been joined in that bipartisan effort by Senators Durbin, 
Gillibrand, Kirk, Klobuchar, Franken, Blumenthal, Shaheen, and King.
  Our bill is intended to give law enforcement better and more 
effective tools. A bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee voted 
for the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act, S. 54, and its 
provisions are included in the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act, S. 
649, that Majority Leader Reid placed on the Senate calendar just 
before the last recess and on which he has now moved to proceed.
  Straw purchasers circumvent the purposes of the background check 
system. Straw purchasing firearms is undertaken for one reason--to get 
a gun into the hands of someone who is legally prohibited from having 
one. We know that many guns used in criminal activities are acquired 
through straw purchases. It was a straw purchaser who enabled the 
brutal murders of two brave firefighters in Webster, NY this past 
Christmas Eve, and it was a straw purchaser who provided firearms to an 
individual who murdered a police officer in Plymouth Township, PA, last 
September.
  We need a meaningful solution to this serious problem. We also 
include suggestions from Senator Gillibrand to go after those who 
traffic in firearms by wrongfully obtaining two or more firearms. We 
worked hard to develop effective, targeted legislation that will help 
combat a serious problem and that will do no harm to the Second 
Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
  It was an ATF whistleblower who testified last Congress that the 
existing firearms laws are ``toothless''. We can create better law 
enforcement tools and that is what we are doing with the Stop Illegal 
Trafficking in Firearms Act. I urge all Senators to join with us to 
close this dangerous loophole in the law that Mexican drug cartels, 
gangs, and other criminals have exploited for too long.
  I especially want to recognize the dedication and leadership of 
Senator Collins to confront the issue of gun violence. Although not a 
member of the Judiciary Committee, she has been committed to finding 
commonsense solutions to the problem of gun violence. Senator Collins 
has been dedicated in working with me to address the concerns of other 
Senators. She and I share a deep respect for the Second Amendment, but 
we also agree that our laws can be improved to give law enforcement 
officials the tools they need to help curtail gun violence. She has 
been a steadfast partner.
  Our bill protects Second Amendment rights of lawful gun owners, while 
cracking down on criminals and those who would assist them. The bill 
does not create a national firearms registry, nor does it place any 
additional burdens on law-abiding gun owners or purchasers. It sends a 
clear message that those who would buy a gun on behalf of a criminal, a 
member of a drug cartel, or a domestic abuser will be held accountable. 
That is why our bill is strongly supported by law enforcement.
  Some have expressed frustration about the level of prosecutions under 
existing gun laws. And some have suggested that instead of making 
sensible changes to our public safety laws to prevent gun violence, 
Federal law enforcement officials should focus exclusively on existing 
laws. I share some of that frustration, but I do not agree it is a 
valid excuse for us to do nothing. Improvements in the enforcement of 
existing laws and efforts to give law enforcement officials better 
tools to do their jobs are not mutually exclusive, those efforts 
complement each other.
  A recent article in The Washington Times documented that gun 
prosecutions were in decline beginning in the Bush administration, and 
suggests that having a Senate-confirmed director of the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives would significantly help law 
enforcement.
  As I said in January, Americans are looking to us for solutions and 
for action, not sloganeering, demagoguery, or partisanship. That is why 
it is particularly disappointing to hear that some Senators are 
pledging to prevent Senate consideration of these legislative proposals 
by filibustering. It is especially disappointing that some who claim to 
support regular order and a transparent legislative process accord that 
process no deference. The Judiciary Committee held three public 
hearings and four public markups on this legislation. It gave them full 
and fair consideration. We debated and considered amendments. What a 
filibuster would do now is obstruct the open process of Senate 
consideration of gun violence prevention legislation. That is wrong.
  I have worked with Senator Collins and others to provide a real 
world, common sense solution to the problem of gun trafficking and 
straw purchasing. That is the course I urge the Senate to take. We need 
to proceed to the bill and do what is best for the American people.

                          ____________________